Varactors are a type of diodes having variable capacitance being a function of the voltage across it. Generally, traditional varactors have low tuning range, low Q-factor, high substrate coupling, and larger size. The high substrate coupling can cause common-mode phase noise. When using in microelectromechanical structure (MEMs) and/or Bi-Complementary Metal Oxide Silicon (BiCMOS) process, these varactors are not compatible with the CMOS process, which is widely used nowadays in many applications. As an example, in an approach, a single-ended semiconductor device having a gate node connected to a dual source terminal and to a P+ region, and a drain terminal connected to an N region, which forms a PN junction diode Capacitor-Voltage C-V) characteristic. In this configuration, the device, however, cannot benefit from the oxide capacitance due to the dominated junction capacitance of the forward PN junction. Further, this device requires a large die area, can use only the junction voltage to tune the capacitance variation, and results in a low tuning range and less efficiency on the varactor characteristics. In another example, an NMOS Varactor (NMOSVAR) can only benefit from the oxide capacitance and the channel capacitance, which limits the C-V range. In another example, a gated-diode using the forward PN junction with heavy doped areas in the N-well also limits the C-V characteristics.
Like reference symbols in the various drawings indicate like elements.